Wednesday,
August 29, 2007
Skype Captures
The
ANNOTICO Report
Italians,
as you well know are probably more into inter personal communications than any
other peoples. Therefore, it is no surprise that very early on Cell phones were
a huge hit in
But
now with the availability of Skype, again
facilitating interpersonal communications at extremely reasonable prices, has made great inroads, even with the elderly.
Skype as you must know is an easily
downloaded software that permits you to make FREE phone calls within your
country with a headphone set through your Computer to another Computer, or a
Phone, over the Internet. Foreign calls are pennies per minute.
The Holy
Trinity of Italian Gadgetry
The
From
I
dont believe its ever been decreed, but come August, it is obligatory
for Italians to holiday with the family. This has a strange effect on the
Italian landscape and economy. The biggest cities empty (except for tourists,
who never seem to leave they just
get larger and more confused) while little seaside communities and hilltop
holiday retreats fill to capacity.
This massive
remigration from the cities to the sea or the countryside is what the Italians
call le ferie. It is not always a holiday
atmosphere. Its a pastime filled with rigid rules starting with morning
coffee (please, stranieri, dont order a
cappuccino after 10am, or this transgression will be the topic of the day) the
lunch menu, and how much time must elapse before it is safe to return to the
sea after lunch (at least two hours, sometimes three). But the food is
sumptuous, and the seaside and mountains are an oasis
from the unrelenting city heat, making this one Italian tradition that I have
happily adopted since coming to live here.
For
me, theres an added bonus. I get to observe Italians interacting with
each other in a more intimate Petri dish than Rome. I am treated to their favourite pop songs (either the Eighties have
never gone away, or theyre making a dramatic comeback here), to their
debates about the merits of the new Fiat Cinquecento and the technology
that now has become an essential part of their lives.
Aside from the Italian
love affair with the telefonino,
This doesnt mean the geek spirit isnt alive and well. Its just that Italians,
from my observations, are more drawn to technologies that allow them to
communicate, express their opinion, flirt or agitate about some social ill.
How can they listen to an iPod if theyre always
on the telephone?
For this reason, blogs too have become a popular mouthpiece for
the Italians of late. In the past year, my friends, spread across the
country, have set up a blog (eoltre.blogspot.com) as a type of online
meeting place to relive the long evenings of debate they once had at a favourite osteria during their
For Italians, Skype rounds out the trinity. If the mobile
phone gives the fretful Italian mamma a reassuring communications lifeline
to her loved ones, and if the blog affords
a young revolutionary his audience, then Skype
is the great liberator from consumer tyranny.
The tyrant, in
this case, is Telecom Italia, the plodding former monopoly that Italians bash
with vigour. Its also a firm they mistrust,
particularly following accusations of wiretapping levelled
at Telecom Italias security team. The allegation is that in exchange for
an envelope full of cash a rogue band of Telecom Italia employees would spy on
businessmen and their girlfriends, footballers and their girlfriends,
politicians and their girlfriends. The fear has become that anybody who picks
up a telephone in this country runs the risk of being bugged. Bypassing Telecom
Italia has become an obvious lure. Throw in free calls, and the country is sold
on Skype.
My father-in-law
Massimo, an art critic, is a Skype newbie.
Test-driving it for the first time about a month ago, he now uses Skype as much as anybody I know, barking pronto,
pronto into his headset every few minutes. He has even set up a Skype cordless phone so that the family can call each other
more often (as if that were possible).
Luckily, the Skype outage two weeks ago occurred during the biggest
summer holiday, while most Italians were outside barbequing or at the beach.
Still, the news was unsettling. Not buying the Microsoft
update explanation for the outage, Italians peppered me with questions
about the incident. Could somebody be sabotaging their Skype?, they asked, looking for clues to feed their growing list
of conspiracy theories against Telecom Italia.
I tried to assure
them it was just a blip, and tucked into the pasta, hoping somebody would
change the subject to something more benign like the new Fiat Cinquecento, the
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